


I've seen ghosts brighter than her soul

by Lizicia



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Snowells, Some angst, Some feels, tag for 2x16, tentative friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:11:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6354607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizicia/pseuds/Lizicia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'When the truth about Jay is revealed, Harrison doesn’t dash off to find Jesse – because she will not want to be found and he will try and deal with it – but goes to find Caitlin instead, trying to offer some of the trust he put in her during the lab stand-off, back to her.'</p>
<p>Tag for 2x16.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've seen ghosts brighter than her soul

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted them to talk post 2x16.

When the truth about Jay is revealed, Harrison doesn’t dash off to find Jesse – because she will not want to be found and he will try and deal with it – but goes to find Caitlin instead, trying to offer some of the trust he put in her during the lab stand-off, back to her.

He finds her in a secluded and derelict part of the lab, sitting in an old office, feet on the dusty table, staring into nothingness over his head.

The sign on the door, crooked and faded is barely readable but he would probably recognize his own name in any state.

Dr. Harrison Wells, her first, original mentor, and his counterpart who ruined so many things for so many people on this Earth. It doesn’t really surprise him that she would be here, in the light of everything that’s happened. After all, the story they unraveled today, has already happened before.

He steps in and she doesn’t even spare him a glance but he sits down opposite her and waits.

He doesn’t have to wait very long.

“I’ve never sat on this side of the table, you know. This was always Dr. Wells’ place. He loved to sit here, working into the late hours or even early hours of the morning. I always thought he was so dedicated to his work, so committed, so passionate.”

She gives him a passing glance and he can tell she’s seeing the other Wells right now but, uncharacteristically for him, does not speak up. Truthfully, he’s been wanting to find out what she would have to say about the man ever since he saw the look on her face when he put on the yellow suit because he couldn’t figure out all the emotions.

“And then he turned out to be a common liar. I was so thankful when he first hired me, you know? He gave me so much, gave so much to all of us. And I know you’re not like him but sometimes I wonder if you really are that different.”

“I did try to steal Barry’s speed, you’re right.”

“To save your daughter. You did it for Jesse, just like you were willing to help Eliza today because you couldn’t let Jesse die.”

“She’s always been mine to protect.”

When he says the words now, Jesse’s tearful plea to stop doing so, to stop risking everything else for her comes to mind but still, he can’t find it in himself to regret it.

He doesn’t expect her to understand; didn’t really expect anyone to understand which is why it still astonishes him that Barry even let him out of the pipeline and they all seem to have moved past that point of betrayal.

But Caitlin merely nods softly. “I would’ve done anything to get Ronnie back at one point. Nobody ever asked me to steal Barry’s speed to do so but…I cannot say for certain that I never would have considered it, at least not when he was still a stranger, more or less.”

“You’re too kind to do so.”

He offers it up without really meaning to say it out loud but when it’s out there, she smiles slightly.

“So are you. And you stopped before it got too far. You knew where the line was and you came clean.”

“She still left.”

She gives him a quizzical look and he realizes he hasn’t exactly told the truth about Jesse’s absence.

“She blamed me for burning down the world to try and save her and just left. Told me not to try and find her, so I’m trying to respect that, for the first time in my life.”

“She has been thrust into a completely new world, quite literally. I know you think you’re doing what is right by keeping her under your watchful eye but she deserves to see the world, too.”

“The world is a cruel place but I guess if I can’t keep her completely safe even in here, then maybe I really should let her do something else as well.”

“I can think of worse things than a father who cares for his daughter.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

It’s not like they’re in each other’s confidence; he would more expect her to talk about Jay with Cisco or Barry, or Iris but not him. Still, he must ask because he feels partly responsible for it as well, having brought Jay Garrick into their universe, having almost led Zoom here, to wreak havoc.

She surprises him though, leaning back in the old office chair to look upwards. “It’s just…why does this keep happening to me? We’ve been through this once before – someone we trusted and thought of as a mentor betrayed us.”

“If it makes you feel any better – I’ve known Garrick for years and I never suspected this. He’s always seemed too good to be capable of something like this.”

“Yeah, he really had us all fooled. I cannot believe that I was so stupid to just fall for this kind of thing, again. You would think that after one time I would be smarter but I just keep on making the same mistake.”

He feels strongly for her when she speaks like that, desolate and a bit broken, her spirit dimmed by this horrific breach of trust and confidence, and a relationship built on lies. For all that he didn’t like Jay, and didn’t exactly approve of their relationship – for reasons he does not quite want to articulate to himself – he could see that she was happier than when they first met.

“You cannot possibly think that it’s your fault that men you loved are gone.”

She laughs humorlessly. “Oh, that is not at all what I meant. Ronnie’s death was painful but at least I knew all along who he was. He never once turned out to be some sort of supervillain.”

“Unlike Jay.”

“Unlike Jay.”

He knows he shouldn’t probably say the next thing but all her words point in this direction, so he just goes with it. “And unlike Dr. Wells.”

“Why do you say that?”

“In the beginning, I could figure out everyone’s emotional reactions to seeing me looking like him. Everyone’s but yours. You were angry but you were also disappointed. I didn’t really gleam it until I put on the suit.”

She purses her lips thoughtfully and he knows he’s hit the spot; there is a deep and emotional reaction hidden here, something which has been kept carefully hidden, tucked away in the back recesses of her mind.

“It was…it wasn’t anything so much but sometimes it felt like there could be something. I know most of his talk was empty promises and flashy words and he didn’t probably mean most of the things he said but I can still hear him in my head, telling me that I was brilliant and amazing and it’s hard to forget when he was the first one to ever really see it.”

For all that he’s stated how unlike this Dr. Wells he is, and without really knowing anything about the man, he cannot picture a world in which even a metahuman superspeedster couldn’t mean those things about Caitlin Snow.

“Before Ronnie came back to us, I felt like there was...potential. I wanted there to be potential, perhaps. But I guess I was always just a pawn to him in his obsession with the Flash. And again, now, just a means to an end for someone who could use me to get to the one they really wanted.”

She blinks her eyes rapidly and he can feel anger on her behalf for two men who with their thoughtless actions could cut her so deep that some part of her seems close to shutting down. She doesn’t deserve any of this.

“Caitlin.”

She startles at her given name and looks at him properly, probably astonished that he knows what she’s called, aside from Snow.

“You’re not insignificant. I know this is a sad excuse but if anything, the fact that you enthralled these two men shows the exact opposite. You are brilliant, otherwise they would not have needed you and I know it doesn’t exactly fix anything but I want you to know that you matter.”

He knows it’s not a great thing to say but he figures it’s still better than confessing just how much he shares their high opinion of her because neither of them are even remotely ready to be considering something like that.

She gives him a small smile, a real one, like a light breaking out again without dimming. “Thank you.”

Maybe someday he can tell her all the rest but for now, this will do.


End file.
